Home Posts tagged "Ron Wolforth"

I’m Having a Black Friday/Cyber Monday Sale (Just Like Everyone Else on the Planet)

I guess I'm joining in the discount madness this holiday season, even if I didn't have to do any planning!  Here are some options for your holiday shopping at EricCressey.com:

1. Whip: What it is and How You Get it - This was a presentation I did a while back at Ron Wolforth's Pitching Coaches Bootcamp, and it's now available for sale individually. In the presentation, I talk about factors the influence whether you increase throwing velocity and how strength and conditioning programs can have a dramatic impact - either positive or negative - on whether one develops the whip needed to throw harder.  You can either watch this online or get it as a DVD.

2. 20% off all Physical Products at MikeReinold.com - This sale includes Functional Stability Training and Optimal Shoulder Performance, along with many of Mike Reinold's other products.  Just enter the coupon code BLACKFRIDAY2012 at checkout to get the discount.

3. 15% of all Products at RobertsonTrainingSystems.com - This sale includes Assess and Correct, Building the Efficient Athlete, and Magnificent Mobility, along with many other products from Mike Robertson. The discount will automatically be applied at checkout.

We don't put products on sale very often, so be sure to take advantage of these offers before they expire at the end of the day on Monday!

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Throwing Programs: The Top 4 Long Toss Mistakes

In part 1, I made the case for long toss as an effective addition to a throwing program.  Today, we answer the question, “Why don’t some pitchers respond well to long toss?”  Let’s look at the top four reasons why someone may not be approaching long toss optimally.

1. They structure it incorrectly.

By far, the biggest mistake I see from pitchers when they’re long tossing is that they don’t utilize compression/pull-down throws at the end of the session.  These throws teach the pitcher to get on top of the ball and bring the release point down to where it should be with pitching – but they do all this with the increased arm speed you get from long tossing.  Effectively, you use compression throws to transition from your longest throwing distance to a flat ground session (this is a practice you’ll see from a LOT of MLB starting pitchers in pre-game warm-ups before they ever step foot on a mound).

Typically, our guys use a compression throw every 45-60 feet on the way back in (it almost amounts to a brisk walk back in).  So, if a pitcher went out to 300 feet with his long toss, he’d take compression throws at about 250, 200, 150, 100, and 60 feet.  I joke with guys that the last throw at 60 feet should pretty much scare the crap out of their throwing partners.  If you've seen Trevor Bauer crow-hopping downthe mound for his last warm-up pitch prior to every inning, you know what I mean.  Not surprisingly, Bauer is an Alan Jaeger/Ron Wolforth long toss disciple.  Here’s what Baseball America had to say about it: “[Bauer] starts behind the rubber, runs over the mound and throws as hard as he can to the plate, from about 54 feet. I've heard reports that those throws have registered 100 mph…”

Some guys – particularly those with a history of control issues and the guys who are trying to tinker with their mechanics – are wise to go into a brief flat-ground (or regular) bullpen right after these compression throws.  It’s a good chance to transfer the arm speed and athleticism of long toss into a little more of a sport-specific action.  I’ve also seen quite a few pitchers who have improved their change-ups considerably by long tossing for part of the session with their change-up grip, and then integrating it into one of these post-long-toss flat ground or bullpen sessions.  It helps with keeping the arm speed up in pitchers who tend to slow down the arm for change-ups.

2. They become good throwers and not good pitchers.

I’ll be straightforward with this one.

If you can long toss 350 feet, but pitch at 80-82mph, you can definitely stand to cut back a bit on your long tossing to spend more time focusing on mound work to sync things up and use that general motor potential to your advantage.

If you can long toss 350 feet, but have a 1:6 strikeout:walk ratio and have pitches hitting the backstop, you can definitely stand to cut back a bit on your long tossing to spend more time focusing on mound work to sync things up and actually throw strikes.

If you can long toss 350 feet, but are getting shelled because you just throw a very straight 93mph and don’t have any secondary pitches, you can definitely stand to cut back a bit on your long tossing to spend more time focusing on mound work to sync things up and learn some other pitches.  The average fastball velocity is higher in low-A than it is in the big leagues, you know…

3. They think long toss covers all their needs.

There are a ton of different factors that contribute to pitching success and longevity.  Once you can throw a ball a long way, there is a tendency to think that you’ve done what you need to be successful, but in reality, there are a lot more things to address to prepare your body and long toss is still pretty specific, in the grand scheme of things.  As is often the case, the greatest benefits are usually derived from doing the things that you don’t do particularly well (yet).  Bartolo Colon, for instance, might be able to long toss 330 feet, but he might have a heart attack on the light jog to the outfield to partake in that long tossing session.

4. They don’t long toss on a straight line.

It seems like a no-brainer, but you should throw on a straight line.  If the guy 250 feet away is 20-feet to the left of “center,” you’re teaching yourself to either stay closed or fly open with your delivery.  Stand on the foul line or line yourself up between foul poles, if you’re looking for a quick and easy way to “get aligned.”

As you probably appreciate now, while long toss is usually a tremendously valuable inclusion in most throwing programs, it isn’t a perfect fit for everyone – and that’s why each unique case must be considered individually.

Don't forget that long toss guru Alan Jaeger has put his popular Thrive on Throwing DVD on sale for 25% off for my readers for a limited time only.  Click here to learn more.

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Making the Case for Long Toss in a Throwing Program

Long toss may have been scorned by quite a few baseball traditionalists, but I am a big fan of it – and our guys have responded outstandingly to the way we’ve used it.  Perhaps it’s just my “1+1=2” logic at work, but I just feel like if you can build up the arm speed to throw the ball a loooonngggg way, then you’ll be able to carry that over to the mound as soon as you get your pitching mechanics dialed in.  And, this has certainly been validated with our athletes, as we have loads of professional pitchers who absolutely swear by long toss (both off- and in-season).

So, you can understand why I got excited when my good buddy, Alan Jaeger – a man who has devoted a big chunk of his life to getting long toss “accepted” in the baseball community – was featured in this article at MLB.com about what a difference it makes - including for the Texas Rangers on their road to the World Series a few years ago.

I was, however, not a fan of this paragraph in the article:

“Former Red Sox pitcher Dick Mills has a business built around teaching mechanics and maximizing velocity, and he is a staunch opponent of long tossing. He has released countless YouTube videos angrily decrying this practice. In his latest, ‘How Long Toss Can Ruin Your Pitching Mechanics and Your Arm,’ he says, ‘Why would you practice mechanics that are totally different and will not help a pitcher during a game? And why would you practice throwing mechanics that are clearly more stressful where the arm does most of the work?’"

Taking it a step further, here’s a Dick Mills quote I came across a few years ago:

“Training will not teach you how to apply more force…only mechanics can do that. And pitching is not about applying more effort into a pitch but is about producing more skilled movements from better timing of all the parts. That will help produce more force. No matter how hard you try, you will not get that from your strength training program…no matter who designed it, how much they have promised you it would or your hope that it will be the secret for you.”

While I agree (obviously) on the importance of mechanics and timing, effectively, we’re still being told that long toss, strength training, and weighted balls are all ineffective modalities for developing the pitcher – which leaves us with what, bullpens and stretching? It sounds like every youth baseball practice in the country nowadays – and all we’re getting now are injured shoulders and elbows at astronomical rates.  Something isn’t right – and the message is very clear: specificity is a very slippery slope.


On one hand, when it comes to mechanics, you need to throw off the mound to get things fine-tuned to achieve efficiency.

On the other hand, research has shown that arm stress is higher when you’re on the mound (there is less external rotation at stride foot contact with flat ground throwing).  Additionally, every pitch that’s thrown is really a step in the direction of sports specialization for a youth baseball player – and something needs to balance that out.  Why?

Well, specializing at a young age is destroying kids.  As a great study from Olsen et al. showed, young pitchers who require surgery pitched “significantly more months per year, games per year, innings per game, pitches per game, pitches per year, and warm-up pitches before a game. These pitchers were more frequently starting pitchers, pitched in more showcases, pitched with higher velocity, and pitched more often with arm pain and fatigue.”  And people think that kid need more work on the mound?  What they need are more structured throwing sessions (practice, not competition) and a comprehensive throwing and strength and conditioning program to prepare them for the demands they’ll face.

But those aren’t specific enough, are they?!?!?!  Well, let’s talk about specificity a bit more.  Actually, let’s read – from renowned physical therapist Gray Cook, a guy who certainly knows a thing or two about why people get injured:

The physical presentation of differently trained bodies often provides a signature of the type and style of activity that developed it. Those who are exclusive in their activities seem more often be molded to their activities, and sometimes actually over-molded. These individuals can actually lose movements and muscles that would make alternate activities much easier.

Specialization can rob us of our innate ability to express all of our movement potential. This is why I encourage highly specialized athletes to balance their functional movement patterns. They don’t so much need to train all movement patterns, they just need to maintain them. When a functional movement pattern is lost, it forecasts a fundamental crack in a foundation designed to be balanced. The point is not that specialization is bad—it only presents a problem when the singular activity over-molds to the point of losing balance.

While there are probably 15-20 awesome messages we can take home from the previous two paragraphs, here’s the big one I want to highlight: it’s our job as coaches to find the biggest window of adaptation a pitcher has and bring it up to speed – while simultaneously keeping other qualities in mind.

If he’s stiff, we work on mobility.  If he’s weak, we get him strong.  If he’s a mechanical train wreck, we get him more bullpens.  If his arm speed isn’t good, we work more on weighted balls and long toss.  If you just take a 5-10, 120-pound 9th grader and have him throw bullpens exclusively, he’ll get better for a little bit, and then plateau hard unless you get him bigger and stronger.

How does this work?  It’s a little principle called Delayed Transmutation that Vladimir Zatsiorsky highlighted in Science and Practice of Strength Training.  Zatsiorsky defines delayed transmutation as “the time period needed to transform acquired motor potential into athletic performance.”  In other words, expand and improve your “motor pool” in the off-season, and it’ll be transformed into specific athletic performance when the time is right.

And, as I wrote in The Ultimate Off-Season Training Manual, “the more experienced you are in a given sport, the less time it will take for you to transform this newfound strength and power [and mobility] into sporting contexts.”  This is why professional pitchers can find their groove each year MUCH easier than high school pitchers in spite of the fact that they probably take more time off each year (2-3 months from throwing) than the typical overused kid who plays on 17 different AAU teams.

That said, there’s a somewhat interesting exception to this rule: really untrained kids.  I’ll give you two examples from the past week alone at Cressey Performance.

We had a high school senior and a high school junior who both just started up their winter throwing programs to prepare for the season.

The first told me that he was sore in his legs after throwing for the first time in his life.  Effectively, without throwing a single pitch or really doing any lesson work (or even throwing off a mound), this kid has managed to change the neuromuscular recruitment patterns he uses to throw the baseball.  Strength, power, and mobility took care of themselves: delayed transmutation.

The second told me that his arm feels electric.  Ask any experienced pitcher, and they’ll tell you that your arm is supposed to feel like absolute crap the first 4-5 days after an extended layoff, but it always gets better.  However, when you’re a kid who has gotten more flexible and packed on a bunch of muscle mass, it’s like all of a sudden driving a Ferrari when you’re used to sharing a minivan with Mom: delayed transmutation.

Specificity is important in any sport, but a it really is just the work as far to the right as you can go on the general to specific continuum.  Elite sprinters do squats, lunges, Olympic lifts, jump squats, and body weight plyos as they work from left to right on the general-to-specific continuum to get faster.  So, why do so many pitching coaches insist that pitchers stay as far to the right as possible?    Symbolically, long toss is to pitchers what plyos are to sprinters: specific, but just general enough to make a profound difference.

In a very roundabout way, I’ve made a case for long toss as something that can be classified as beneficial in much the same way that we recognize (well, most of us, at least) that mobility drills, foam rolling, strength training, movement training, and medicine ball drills to be excellent adjuncts to bullpens. In the process of learning to throw the baseball farther, we:

1. push arm speed up

2. train in a generally-specific fashion

3. improve contribution of the lower half

4. realize another specific, quantifiable marker (distance) of progress

5. keep throwing fun

6. train the arm with just enough LESS specificity to help keep pitchers healthy, as compared with mound work

The question then becomes, “Why don’t some pitchers respond well to long toss?”  In part 2, I’ll outline the most common mistakes I’ve seen:

When I told Alan Jaeger that I was sending this article out, he graciously offered to set up a 25% off discount code on his Thrive on Throwing DVD set for my readers. This outstanding DVD set thoroughly teaches players and coaches how to approach long tossing, and Alan has also applied a discount to his J-Bands and his Getting Focused, Staying Focused book for pitchers. Here's a link to the discount page.

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EC on “Let’s Talk Baseball” with Ron and Jill Wolforth

Recently, I was on the "Let's Talk Baseball" show with Ron and Jill Wolforth, where we talked baseball development in the context of assessing pitchers and correcting their inefficiencies.  Check it out: Let's Talk Baseball We discuss the Assess & Correct DVD set quite a bit - and you can pick up a copy HERE.

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Building the Elite Pitcher

Back in December, I was honored to be included as one of several speakers who presented at Ron Wolforth's 2009 Ultimate Pitching Coaches Bootcamp.  As was the case in previous years, it was a great event that brought together a lot of forward-thinking minds from various roles in the pitching world.  Today, I'm happy to announce that I've arranged for a sweet deal on the DVDs of the event for my readers only. Since I was a presenter and Ron's a good friend of mine, he agreed to let me make the DVDs available to my readers at $50 off the normal purchase price.  All you need to do is click through the following link, and the discount will automatically be applied at checkout: https://m130.infusionsoft.com/go/UPCBC2009/EC/ My presentation, Whip: What it is and how to get it, lasted 75 minutes and covered: -The stretch-shortening cycle: what it means to pitchers and how to get the most out of it -How different pitchers throw hard via different mechanical, flexibility, and strength/power factors -How to identify and address mobility and stability deficits in pitchers I also gave a 30-minute hands-on session on foam rolling for pitchers. In addition, there were several other fantastic, informative - and sometimes controversial - presentations from Phil Donley, Neiman Nix, Wes Johnson, Brent Strom, Flint Wallace, Aaron Weintraub, and, of course, Ron Wolforth.  I love the fact that this event always covers everything from physical therapy/injury prevention, to physical preparation, to mental preparation, to mechanics, to structuring practices, to pitch sequencing.

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Fortunately, the 150 coaches in attendance aren't the only ones who will get to experience this event, as the entire weekend was recorded. So, whether you coach, rehabilitate, or train baseball athletes, this is a great resource that you'll find yourself looking back to for years to come.  I know I put a ton of time into my presentation and did my best to load as much information into it as possible - so you have my word that it'll be worth it. Here's the link again: https://m130.infusionsoft.com/go/UPCBC2009/EC/
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Talking Pitching: A Recap of the 2010 ABCA Pitching “Hot Stove” Discussion

Today, we've got another great guest post from Matt Blake. "If I embark on a voyage of exploration, and I set as my goals the willingness to follow any lead, pursue any interesting observation, overcome any difficulties, and I end up in some exotic locale that might be very different from my predictions before setting out, have I changed my destination in any way? I would say not; the sine qua non of science is not the conclusions we reach but the process we use to arrive at them, and that is the polestar by which we navigate." -PZ Myers, Biologist, University of Minnesota One might ask why the heck a pitching coach is leading off his article on a fitness expert's blog with a quote from a biologist, and how it would have any relevance to the topic at hand. Where could this possibly be going? Well, I recently attended the American Baseball Coaches Association "Hot Stove" Pitching Discussion in Dallas, Texas on January 10th with about 200-300 coaches from all over the country.  And, I would say that this notion was the overriding theme to take away from the event. This "Hot Stove" pitching discussion was part of the bigger national convention that takes place every year. This event provided an outstanding forum for people to hear some leading thinkers in baseball discuss pitching in an informal public setting. Some of the notable attendees of this event were Tom House, Alan Jaeger, Brent Strom, and Derek Johnson.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with these names, I'll give you a brief description of each. Tom House is a former major leaguer, former major league pitching coach, and is regarded as one of the great modern day pitching gurus and currently coaches at the University of Southern California. Alan Jaeger runs Jaegersports.com and has an outstanding understanding of long toss, arm care and how it should be applied to your player's development.

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Brent Strom is a former major leaguer, is an instructor in the St. Louis Cardinals system, and teams up with Ron Wolforth to run the Ultimate Pitching Coaches Bootcamp every year. They also run some outstanding Elite Pitcher Bootcamps during the summer. These two presented early in the weekend and are proponents of the "Blending" and "Chunking" theories and advocate for training pitchers through the use of athletic and aggressive throwing drills. Derek Johnson is currently the Pitching Coach at Vanderbilt University and is regarded as one of the premier pitching coaches in the country. Producing ten drafted pitchers (including three first-rounders) over the last three years will usually do that. Honestly, this is just a handful of people in a room that included dozens of D1/D2/D3 pitching coaches, as well as numerous outstanding high school coaches, but these guys really stand out with their contributions to the pitching community's knowledge base. Tom House did his part by speaking to the crowd about the importance of being able to accept new ideas that run counter to your current train of thought. He brought up an interesting point regarding the need to be strong enough to change your positions and adapt your training methods as the information presented to you deems necessary. This is not too far from what you see happening on the strength and conditioning front every day. If I remember correctly, it wasn't too long ago that Mike Boyle questioned the value of the almighty squat. Who would have thunk it?  This is a great example of a man following a process of logical thought to create his own philosophy even if it runs counter to much of the traditional thought. You don't need to agree with him on this, as we still use a lot of squatting variations at Cressey Performance, but based on his interpretation of the research, this is what he thought gave him the best value in the risk/reward category for his athletes. On the baseball side, this idea was none more evident than when Tom House was challenged about the effectiveness of the towel drill and admitted he was wrong about this drill in its original form. This drill has been a staple in many pitching coaches' dry work for years. In coming to understand where the towel drill was lacking, Tom has recently changed the weight of the implement in the drill from 2 oz to 5/6/7oz depending on the training intentions. This essentially changed the deceleration demands to be more similar to a baseball and worked to counter the argument at hand, by letting everyone know, that as science has progressed he has needed to adapt his training methods.

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One of the other important topics that House brought up was the need to understand the science behind the overhead throw. If we expect to train players at the highest level, we need to know what is actually happening in the body. By incorporating information relating to a player's "Kinematic Sequence," one is more apt to see where players are either efficient or inefficient in creating energy and delivering force to the ball. Understanding the sequencing of the body's rotations is essential to getting the timing of the delivery right and avoiding stressful mechanic flaws.

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The way he phrased it may or may not have gone over a lot of coaches' heads and split the camp into science-based vs. common sense/feel coaches.  But, I obviously believe Tom is right on this point or I wouldn't spend my waking life in Eric's facility. On the flip side, I can also understand where coaches who do not naturally gravitate to the analytical style would find other ways to communicate this information than the technical jargon House used. At the end of the day, your players either understand what you're saying or they don't.  If they don't, you need to come back to their level of thought before they tune you out. Along these lines, one of the points I strongly agree with Tom on is the need to look at the golf industry and how advanced their level of instruction is in the private sector. Greg Rose and the people of the Titleist Performance Institute are doing some great things on the technology front, as far as analyzing swings and doing physical assessments to improve golf technique. Obviously, this is a different beast with the way their market dynamics have been established, but there is enough money within the baseball industry to start dedicating some of our resources to making sure we have the best information available to the general public. The rate at which players are getting injured because people are simply uninformed is not okay in this supposed "Information Age."

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One of the refreshing things to see is that people are at least beginning to recognize that we can't be so rigid in our approach to training pitchers. We are just now leaving an era where we thought we had all the answers and we could box up our pitchers to 90 degree angles and call it a day. Funny that injuries are up at nearly every level of the game from little league to the Pros, so obviously something isn't working. With that said, I'll leave you with one last short story that Tom House provided us at the convention. It has do with a time when he was coaching Nolan Ryan on the Texas Rangers. Nolan credits a lot of his success later on in his career due to the physical shape Coach House got him in.  Obviously, this is a second-hand retelling of a story, so I'll leave it up to Tom to come over to Ericcressey.com and correct me in the comments section, but I think you'll get the gist. As many of you know, Coach House is famous for really being a pioneer on the biomechanical analysis front. One day, House was attempting to talk to Nolan Ryan about his famously high leg kick, by letting him know that it might make more sense to bring his leg kick down a bit and get himself a little more under control. In Nolan Ryan's Texan drawl, he calmly responded, "Tom, with all due respect sir... I understand you know a lot about the game, but if there's one thing I know.... It's that the higher I lift my leg here, the harder I'm gonna throw this baseball. So you can go ahead and stick that in your computer of yours." And if that doesn't bring this discussion full circle, I'm not quite sure what will.

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In the end, I think as important as it is to follow the research, it is just as important to let the common sense/feel aspects drive the questions being researched. Obviously, science is continuously digging deeper, but if we don't listen to our athletes, we may be digging in the wrong places. Like I've said before, the athlete throws the baseball, so giving them the necessary information and letting them find their own signature style with it is essential to their development. Matt Blake can be reached at mablak07@gmail.com. Related Posts A New Model for Training Between Starts: Part 1 Philosophizing from Goliath's Shoulders A Baseball Training Interview with Eric Cressey Sign-up Today for our FREE Baseball Newsletter and Receive a Copy of the Exact Stretches used by Cressey Performance Pitchers after they Throw!
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The Best of 2009: Product Reviews

In my last post, we covered the most popular articles here at EricCressey.com in 2009.  Today, we'll cover my top product reviews of 2009.  Several of these were interviews with authors that came in light of their launch of new products.  In addition to discussion of the products, most of these have a ton of good information you won't want to miss. Warpspeed Fat Loss Results Part 1 and Part 2 - Technically, this was the end of 2008, but had we done a November-to-November year, it would have blown the rest of these product reviews out of the water.  The reason?  Results!  Check out the before and after pictures of one CP client who kicked some serious butt with this program.  For a lot of you who are looking to get on track with your fat loss efforts in the new year, this would be a good product to check out. Strength and Conditioning Webinars - I think this product might be the most useful one of the year for fitness professionals, as Anthony Renna has made sure that there is awesome content coming out month after month.  It's cheaper than traveling to seminars, and you can get educated on YOUR schedule.  I highly recommend checking it out.

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The Best Baseball Resource Out There - This write-up discusses the DVDs of the 2008 Ultimate Pitching Coaches Boot Camp; I was one of eight presenters on the DVD. Accelerated Muscular Development - This product from Jim Smith was popular among folks who'd completed the Maximum Strength program and were looking for "The Next Step."

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The Evolution of Personal Training (with Alwyn Cosgrove) - In this interview, Alwyn covers some key concepts that every fitness professional should understand.

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Off-Ice Performance Training for Hockey (with Kevin Neeld) - This is an interview with Kevin that covers hockey training tips for both coaches and players. Tomorrow, we'll cover the most popular EricCressey.com exclusive videos on the year.
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Some Quick Announcements

Sorry for the lack of content this week; I've been pretty swamped with everything from family stuff to all the regular goings-on at Cressey Performance.  And, most specific to this blog, I've got a few sweet announcements on events that were just getting finalized... First, registration is now open for the 2009 Ultimate Pitching Coaches Bootcamp on December 4-6 in Houston, TX at Ron Wolforth's Baseball Ranch - and I'm (again) really excited to be among those presenting.  You can sign up HERE. Second, Mike Reinold and I have confirmed a date for our one-day shoulder seminar here at my facility just west of Boston.  We'll be officially announcing the details on Monday of next week - and I'll have more information in a few days (including a special early-bird registration discount code for only my readers).  Here's a little teaser: Testing, Treating, and Training the Shoulder: From Assessment to High Performance This will be a 50/50 lecture/lab split, and we'll be limiting enrollment to optimize the interaction we have with attendees.  Keep an eye out!
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Strength and Conditioning Programs: Crossfit for Baseball?

I've received a lot of emails just recently (as well as some in-person questions) asking me what I think of Crossfit for strength and conditioning programs with baseball players and, more specifically, pitchers.

Let me preface this email with a few qualifying statements.  First, the only exercise "system" with which I agree wholeheartedly is my own.  Cressey Sports Performance programming may be similar in some respects to those of everyone from Mike Boyle, to Louis Simmons, to Ron Wolforth, to the Crossfit folks - but taken as a whole, it's entirely unique to me.  In other words, I will never agree completely with anyone (just ask my wife!).

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Second, in spite of the criticism Crossfit has received from some people I really respect, I do feel that there are some things they're doing correctly.  For starters, I think that the camaraderie and enthusiasm that typifies their training groups is fantastic; anything that gets people (who might otherwise be sedentary) motivated to exercise is a plus.  Moreover, they aren't proponents of steady-state cardio for fat loss, and they tend to gravitate toward compound movements.  So, good on them for those favorable traits. Additionally, I know some outstanding coaches who run Crossfit franchises, so their excellent skill sets may be overshadowed by what less prepared coaches are doing simply because they have the same affiliation.

However, there are several issues that concern me with applying a Crossfit mentality to the baseball world:

1) The randomness of the "workout of the day" is simply not appropriate for a sport that has quite possibly the most specific sport-imposed asymmetries in the world of athletics.  I've written about these asymmetries in the past, and they can only be corrected with specific corrective training modalities.

I'm reminded of this constantly at this time of year, as we get new baseball players at all levels now that seasons are wrapping up. When a player presents with a 45-degree glenohumeral internal rotation deficit, a prominent scapular dyskinesis, terrible right thoracic rotation, a big left rib flair, a right hip that's stuck in adduction, and a complete lack of rotary stability, the last thing he needs to do is a 15-minute tri-set of cleans, kipping pull-ups, and push-ups - following by some 400m sprints. It not only undermines specificity of exercise selection, but also the entire concept of periodization.

Getting guys strong isn't hard.  Neither is getting them powerful or building better endurance.  Finding the right mix to accomplish all these initiatives while keeping them healthy is the challenge.

2) The energy systems development found in Crossfit is inconsistent with the demands of baseball.  I wrote extensively about my complete and utter distaste for distance running in the baseball world, and while Crossfit doesn't go this far, in my eyes, anything over 60yds is "excessive distance" for baseball guys.  Most of my guys sprint two times a week during the off-season, and occasionally we'll go to three with certain athletes.  Let's just say that elite sprinters aren't doing Crossfit, and the energy systems demands of baseball players aren't much different than those of elite sprinters.

3) I have huge concerns about poor exercise technique in conditions of fatigue in anyone, but these situations concern me even more in a population like baseball players that has a remarkably high injury rate as-is.  The fact that 57% of pitchers suffer some sort of shoulder injury during each season says something.  Just think of what that rate is when you factor in problems in other areas, too!  The primary goal should not be entertainment or variety (or "muscle confusion," for all the morons in pro baseball who call P90X their "hardcore" off-season program).  Rather, the goals should be a) keeping guys on the field and b) safe performance enhancement strategies (in that order).

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As an example, all I need to do is look back on a program we used in one of our first pro pitchers back for the off-season last fall.  He had a total of 20 pull-up and 64 push-up variation reps per week (in addition to some dumbbell bench pressing and loads of horizontal pulling/scapular stability/cuff work).  This 84-rep figure might be on the low-end of a Crossfit program for a single day.  Just like with throwing, it's important to do things RIGHT before even considering doing them A LOT.

4) Several of the exercises in typical Crossfit programs (if there is such a thing) concern me in light of what we know about baseball players.  I'll cover this in a lot more detail in an article within the next few weeks, but suffice it to say that most have significant shoulder (if not full-body) laxity (acquired and congenital), abnormal labral features, partial thickness supraspinatus tears, poor scapular upward rotation, retroversion (gives rise to greater external rotation), and diminished rotator cuff strength in the throwing shoulder (particularly after a long season).  Most pro pitchers will have more than 190 degrees of total motion at the shoulder, whereas many of the general population folks I encounter rarely exceed 160 degrees.

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In short, the shoulders you are training when working with baseball players (and pitchers, in particular) are not the same as the ones you see when you walk into a regular ol' gym.  Want proof? Back in 2007, on my first day working with a guy who is now a middle reliever in the big leagues, I started to teach him to front squat.  He told me that with only the bar across his shoulder girdle, he felt like his humerus was going to pop out of the socket.  Not surprisingly, he could contort his spine and wrists like a 14-year-old female gymnast.  This laxity helps make him a great pitcher, but it would destroy him in a program where even the most conservative exercises are done to the point that fatigue compromises ideal form.  And, let's be honest; if I was dumb enough to let someone with a multi-million dollar arm do this, I'd have agents and GMs and athletic trainers from a lot of major league systems coming after me with baseball bats!

5) Beyond just "acts of commission" with inappropriate exercise selection and volume, there are also "acts of omission."  For example, a rotational sport like baseball requires a lot of dedicated work to address thoracic spine and hip mobility and anti-extension and anti-rotatoin core stability.  If you exhaust your training time and recovery capacity with other things, there may not be enough time or energy to pay attention to these important components.

All that said, I would encourage anyone who deals with baseball players to learn to borrow bits and pieces from a variety of methods available today.   Along the way, take into account the unique characteristics of the overhead throwing athlete and manage accordingly.  Simply saying "I'm a Crossfit guy"  and adhering to an approach that was never intended for a baseball population does a huge disservice to the athletes that count on you to bring them the most up-to-date, cutting-edge training practices available.

If you're interested in learning more about some of the asymmetries and training techniques I noted above, I'd strongly encourage you to check out Optimal Shoulder Performance, where both Mike Reinold and I go into some detail on assessment and corrective exercise for pitchers in this seminar (and there's also a lot more fantastic information for anyone looking to develop pitchers). You can buy it HERE, or learn more about it HERE.

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Sign-up Today for our FREE Baseball Newsletter and Receive Instant Access to a 47-minute Presentation from Eric Cressey on Individualizing the Management of Overhead Athletes!

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The Anatomy of a Strength Coach’s Desk

The nicest thing about baseball season is, obviously, the fact that I get to watch a ton of baseball and see their off-season dedication pay off on the field.  Another nice perk, though, is that I get about six weeks to gather my thoughts, spend a little extra time on writing/consulting, and just tie up loose ends on little projects here and there. One such project from last week - which clearly wasn't so little - was cleaning my desk at Cressey Performance.  As you can see in the picture below (numerically labeled for the sake of explanation below), it was something that really needed to get done. anatomyofastrengthcoachsdesk 1. Water Bottle...likely from 2003. 2. One of my old business cards - and it's serving an important purpose: covering up the strawberry protein powder stain on #3. 3. Stained picture of my fiancee Anna and I.  For the record, she spilled it, and it was her shake - but this relationship isn't about blame, is it, honey? 4. That's a world record deadlift certificate.  I'm pretty sure it was a 567.5 deadlift at a body weight of 163 in my last meet as a junior back in 2005.  However, I've received so many awards for my devastatingly good looks since then that it's all a blur (kidding, folks; they were all for my charming wit and personality). 5. Fiancee's watch.  I've been engaged two weeks and she's already all up in my business! 6. Packing tape - to keep my mouth shut after my comment on #5. 7. Laptop, and I need a new one.  Suggestions? I'm too big of a wuss to make the leap to a Mac. 8. Ball signed by all of my in-person pro baseball players from this past off-season.  I get hounded all the time for my autograph, so I thought I'd turn the tables on someone. 9. DVD of my presentation from Ron Wolforth's Ultimate Pitching Coaches Bootcamp in December.  This set is fantastic, and it would be worth checking out. 10. Digital camera: quite possibly the most useful thing you can have kicking around if you are a strength coach.  It's an awesome way to give athletes instant visual feedback, or to take videos of "team building."

11. Cell phone.  Yes, I know it's white, but they were out of the black ones, and I needed a phone right away.  I make up for it by being a text message rock star. 12. Keys, which are under something, meaning that I'll probably lose them when I go to leave for the night. 13. Desk: you'll notice it isn't a very nice one, and the reason is pretty simple.  I'm a slob and don't really need anything better. 14. I-Pod, because I'm very 21st century-ish. 15. Waldo (of Where's Waldo? fame).  Actually, it's an envelope I should have mailed to my brother a few days ago.  Crap. 16. Royalty statement for Maximum Strength.  Since we haven't earned any royalties, I guess you could just call it a piece of paper.  Then again, reading these things is like perusing stereo instructions written in Chinese, so I'm assuming they'll always just be pieces of paper to me. 17. Sunglasses, because MC Hammer taught me that you're only cool if you wear sunglasses inside. 18. Two plaques I received for speaking at the Maine NSCA Symposium.  One of them was the first annual Dr. Richard LaRue award.  I definitely need to hang 'em up before I spill something on them. 19. This is a drawer filled with almonds, chewing gum, plastic forks, kryptonite, and Tony's manhood (he'll get it back when he stops listening to techno). 20. Basketball signed by the 2004-2005 UCONN women's basketball team.  A lot of the girls on this year's national championship team were freshmen during my last year on campus.  In hindsight, I never really got much stuff signed by the athletes with whom I worked, but this was one I actually got around to snagging. 21. This month's NSCA Journal, the focus of which was entirely baseball.  Some of it was good (weighted balls meta-analysis), and some was absolutely atrocious (the take on pitchers distance running, to which I am ademantly opposed). 22. Free t-shirts, quite possibly the coolest perk of being a strength coach.  Here, we've got shirts from the SF Giants (Steve Hammond), Nobles & Greenough (Ben Knott), and Stonehill College (Clark Leger).  Thanks, guys! 23. Sticky note...as if a note could actually organize me!?!?!? 24. Journal article on glenoid dysplasia.  I always try to have something right on-hand to read if I get a spare minute. 25. Business cards for local physical therapists with whom we work: it never hurts to have a great network. 26. Business cards for a local sports psychologist (all the CP staff members need to spend time with him to put up with my crap). 27. Dry erase board, also known as the center of my universe. 28. Health history for a client I had just evaluated.  I use my notes to write his program. 29. Signed picture from USA Bobsled driver Bree Schaaf - and it reminds me that I have a bunch of other stuff like this that I need to hang up in my office! 30. Lincoln-Sudbury Baseball 2007 State Championship Plaque.  Bring home another one this year, fellas! 31. Towel - originally brought to work for showering purposes, but it eventually got devoted to towel pull-ups full-time! 32. Boots that I should have taken home months ago when winter ended. 33. Warm-up pants that I always have on-hand in case I need to catch a bullpen.  Putting catcher's gear on top of shorts is not comfortable. 34. My supplement stockpile.  Chance favors the prepared mind, so I try not to ever get caught shorthanded on the calories front at work. Fortunately, this is all pretty cleaned-up by now.  I feel pretty out-of-sorts as a result, though!

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